Tuesday, October 29, 2013

I love Halloween! Though at the moment, I have nothing planned this year. And I know I’m probably not alone. So I’ve decided to do a post featuring 2 easy face painting looks I did last year. If I need to put together a costume for this year, I’ll probably either try one of these again or another face painting idea (either a skeleton or pop art girl).

Sugar Skull

This is a very easy look to do. Apply white face paint, then using either a paint brush and black face paint or an old eyeliner (I used liquid) to sketch in the details. It’s up to you what colours you use, I used a lipstick for the red, though you could use face paint or eye shadow. Search Google Images, YouTube and Pinterest for ideas and inspiration.

Creepy Doll

I based this look off Siobhan’s creepy doll on Letzmakeup on YouTube (video here). I did it on my sister the Halloween 2011 and liked it so much that I decided to try it on myself last year. It’s a simple enough look. Again, white face paint. I then blocked out my eyebrows so I could draw in a new set. I used the liquid eyeliner.I only put on the look for hanging around my house Halloween (when waiting to see if I got any trick or treaters. I got one call, my brother!). If I had done this properly, I would have definitely applied false eyelashes, both above and below. I think they really do add to the look. I might also had some false freckles.

If you are looking for some more easy face ideas, Marian over at High Life of Mars has loads of really cool ones that are well worth looking up!

If you are looking for some more Halloween ideas on this blog, here are some links!

Friday, October 25, 2013

If you were to ask people what did they associate with the Mexican Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos) holiday, I bet most people would say sugar skulls or Calacas as they are also know. I love the idea and traditions that I know that surround Day of the Dead, how it’s a time for honouring the dead with edible sugar skulls, flowers, the favourite food and drink of the deceased and visiting the graves with these gifts. I love the colours and images used, so bright and fun and I couldn’t resist doing some nail designs.

Black and white used for all the nails are Barry M Nail Art Pens. When using, I give plenty of time for the base coat to dry, even an hour or two, before using. Allow nail art pen to dry before using a top coat (which is NEEDED as the nail art pen will rub and wear off)

I used the tutorial chart from Paper Thin Nails to help figure out how to do the skull outline, some inspiration from these nails on Maryam Maquillage and this video on YouTube from HelloMaphie. I had so much fun designing these and even though I want to do so many more Halloween looks, every time I look at them it just makes me happy! I think my favourite is the index finger, though I am really impressed with Catrice Pinky and the Brain, I had never used it before (I got it free off them when a nail varnish broke on me last year) and I was never inspired by just looking at it in the bottle.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

My aunt asked me to bake something savoury, as well as some sweet baked goods using goats’ cheese, to bring along to the St. Tola Organic Goats’ Cheese Open Day. I knew I wanted to do a bread so I searched for ideas and came across this bread. It’s a Delia recipe so I knew it would be a goodun’! And it was a big hit, I was surprised at how good it actually tasted. I’m not a big fan of goats’ cheese but even I loved this bread. It sounds a bit ‘busy’, like my Guinness bread I made, but it really does all work together. I doubled Delia’s recipe, planning on making two loaves, but I found that they were quite small so I decided to just make it one big loaf.

Monday, October 21, 2013

I’ve ben in a slump when it comes to writing posts, even though I have loads of topics and photos to post about. I thought posting about books might help me! This is going to be a post about books I’ve purchased recently, physical (new and second hand), audio and e-books.

Drunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces That Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave by Adam Alter

The title of this books really gives away a lot of what it’s about! I picked it up as I like books that ‘uncover’ the reasons why we behave a certain way and how our thoughts and decisions are sometimes influenced by strange and unconnected reasons, the psychology behind all this.

West End Girls by Jenny Colgan

I’ve enjoyed previous Colgan books and I picked this up cheaply thinking I’d need a book to read. Of course, I didn’t get around to reading it then!

Springtime for Germany: Or How I Learned To Love Lederhosen by Ben Donald

I picked this up cheaply in a charity shop. Well it would have been rude to leave empty handed right?! Main reason I picked this up is because I really like travel writing, specifically memoirs like this. In this book, the author goes to Germany to learn about different aspects of German culture. It does seem to have a few not so great reviews on Goodreads but I won’t let that stop me from giving it a go!

The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher Or The Murder At Road Hill House by Kate Summerscale

My second charity shop purchase. I had just finished The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith and was in the mood to give mystery stories a chance. This title rung a faint bell in my mind and sounded interesting (set in Victorian times, a family wakes one morning to find one member has been murdered and Jack Whicher from Scotland Yard has been sent in to crack the case).

David & Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell

I am so excited to get this! I’ve read two of Gladwell’s books so far (What The Dog Saw and Blink) and I love his style of writing. I decided to use up the last of the book voucher I got for my birthday last year and also got another Books Are My Bag tote bag! The book is about how the underdog succeed more than they should, the hidden dynamics that allow the weak and small overpower the strong and mighty. Really looking forward to getting stuck in

The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True by Richard Dawkins (not pictured)

I wrote about getting this book in my Books Are My Bag post. I don’t have the book at the moment as my aunt went walkies with it. She claims her dog Lucy is currently reading it!

I got a free download from Audible.com from a podcast offer and I decided to wait until the release date of this audio book (Sept 24th, Jim Henson’s birthday) to get this book. Jim Henson is someone who I’ve been meaning to look into more, he’s a fascinating man and nearly everyone has grown up loving some form of his creations. I haven’t had a chance to listen yet but I suspect I shall be listening to this for the next 2 weeks or so while getting some packing down!

E-books

Amazon has had a lot of offers on, I couldn’t resist buying some books! I think my e-book collection to read is beginning to rival my physical books I own to read collection!

A Song of Fire and Ice series by G.R.R.Martin

I bought the first book (A Game of Thrones) during the summer when it was 99p but at the beginning of October the rest of the books went on offer for 99p each and I couldn’t resist getting them! I was going to buy the physical copies eventually and I still might if I enjoy the series but for now I’m happy I got the entire series for about the same price as just one of the books!

The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

I actually ordered this from the library the same time as The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (which I read last month) and when this came in to the library after, I couldn’t face reading it after just reading a book about a man doing an extraordinary walk. So when I saw this was on offer for 99p the same day it was due back from the library, I decided to purchase it so I can read it later on.

You Can Beat Your Brain by David McRaney

This book also goes by the title You Are Now Less Dumb (sidebar, I hate when the names of books are changed. I got all excited seeing a new book by Danny Wallace until I read the back and realised it was his last book under a new name!). Anyway, I finished McRaney’s previous book You Are Not So Smart in June, saw this on offer for 99p Saturday night on Amazon and decided I’d probably enjoy it since I liked the first book. It’s possibly still on offer this week if you head of to Amazon.

And that’s it for now! I really do need to start digging into books, I’m going to try put an ordering ban on library books until I get through some of the books I own. Though that might prove to be hard seeing as I’ve already gone through my Goodreads and marked the books that are in the Manchester Libraries for when I move there next month! Help, I have a reading addiction! I suppose it could always be worse though.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

This week I’ve decided to stick with videos that revolve around music in one way or another. Hope you enjoy!

Of course, the internet has been ablaze with Miley Cyrus for a while now and it amped up once Sinead O’Connor decided to write a series of open letters. I’m not going to dwell on that, instead listen to this Wrecking Ball and Nothing Compares 2U mashup, I love it!

Sticking with Miley for the second video, here she is singing with The Roots and Jimmy Fallon in an acapella version of We Won’t Stop. I prefer it to the original!

Coolio popped up this week, singing Gangsta’s Paradise with some University of Central Lancashire students in Preston. Bizarre in some ways but totally worth a watch.

I’ve shown videos before from CDZA, I love them. This one is the Journey of Guitar Solo, they also have a drums one too.

Finally Clare celebrate winning the All Ireland Hurling Championship by having Brendan Bugler play on the accordion, some dancing and some singing. I guess Anthony Daly was right, we DO love our traditional music as well as our hurling! As someone who was at that match, it was a fantastic day and I just loved seeing this video after.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Books Are My Bag is a campaign that was launched mid September that runs until Christmas 2013 to promote local bookshops. The idea is that the local bookshop is the best places to touch, smell and browse books, a place where you can meet and talk to other book lovers and get recommendations. Loads of celebrities have gotten involved too!

Dawn O’ Porter and Chris O’Dowd ; Marian Keyes

Stephen Hawking; Neil Gaiman

Like a lot of people these days, I have bought books online and also ebooks, though nothing beats being in a book shop. I could spend hours browsing in one, I much prefer to go book shopping over than clothes shopping. I love looking from section to section, trying to find a bargain. My favourite sections are probably the science and pop psychology books, cooking section, humour section and travel section, particularly travel memoirs. I do of course browse the fiction books too. I’m quite dangerous when left alone in a bookshop with a large amount of money. I remember being on work placement in Kilkenny in 2009, feeling a bit low and miserable one week, so I went to Dubray Books and bought 7 books. I really wish I could do that more often!

I remember trying to convince my Mum to buy us a new Harry Potter book from Tesco on her way back from her night shift, as the book shops wouldn’t be open. And she didn’t want to, as she didn’t like the idea of a supermarket taking trade from a bookshop. And I must say, that idea has grown on me. If you bought all your meat, your music and your books from a supermarket, then it’s taking trade from butchers, music shops and book shops. I’m not saying that people need to go to a butchers, a bakers, a green grocers etc. in order to get all their shopping, while it might suit some, it definitely won’t suit others. But I try as best as I can to at least buy books in bookshops. Like I said, I’m not perfect, I have bought the odd book from a supermarket or online but overall I’d much, MUCH prefer to go and support a bookshop. Which is why I think Books Are My Bag is a great campaign and I was delighted to see my local bookshop was taking part, as it meant that once I bought a book I’d get my free tote bag! I picked up The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins. I’ve never read any of this books and I’ve been curious to read this aimed at a younger crowd book ever since I saw a 12 year old girl reading it in A&E back in January! I thought it might be a good place to start with Dawkins.

This campaign runs until Christmas, so when you’re in a bookshop, ask if they have any totes left and when you make a purchase you will get one!

Monday, October 7, 2013

Rimmel Space Dust in Moon Walking

Rimmel Space Dust in Aurora

Catrice Gel Like Top Coat

Catrice Ultimate Nail Lacquer in Miami pINK

Catrice Ultimate Nail Lacquer in Mermaid My Day

Catrice Ultimate Nail Lacquer in Kitch Me If You Can

I’m looking forward to trying out the Rimmel Space Dusts especially, they are textured and kinda remind me of thePrecious Stones nail polishes they already have out. I’ve had one try of the Catrice Gel Top Coat and I’m pretty impressed. I didn’t have high hopes, I was disappointed by the Essence version of this (made my nails so shiny but I found it didn’t dry properly or fast enough and my nails always ended up smudged). My nails lasted days without chipping and were shiny.

Eyes

Catrice Better Than False Lashes Mascara in Ultra Black

GOSH Extreme Art EyeLiner in 13

I’ll admit, I bought the GOSH eyeliner partly because it was half price. And also because I’ve wanted a gold liner after seeing Lenny Kravtiz as Cinna in The Hunger Games. That man can rock a gold eyeliner like nobodies business! And I always like to try out new mascaras, they are one of my makeup weaknesses. I’ve tried it once and was scared when I saw the massive brush, however I think I have a new favourite! NO clumping whatsoever, which is my no.1 pet hate when it comes to mascara. 1 coat would be perfect for a subtle look while 2 coats really builds it up.

Face

Catrice Allround Concealer-palette

Catrice Blush Tint in Rose Tint

My skin is going through a major teenage moment. I was look when I was a teenager, I rarely got spots. Now I’m covered in them, angry red ones that have left marks. So I bought this palette mainly because I wanted to try the green concealer to colour correct the redness. And I love tinted blushers and decided to add to my collection!

Lips

Catrice Precision Lip Liner in The Roof is on Fire

Catrice Infinite Shine Lip Gloss in Pink Before You Leave

I don’t wear much on my lips, in fact I rarely, if ever, have something strong on it. But I wanted to try a bit of colour and decided to nab this half price liner, so I could use it all over if I wanted. I liked the dark red, I think it suits me slightly better than a much brighter daring one. And this gloss is lovely, very very subtle colour but I like that it’s a clear gloss. I’ve never tried a Catrice one before, mainly because they don’t come out with a clear look or else have glitter or shimmer in them. This is great for something more natural.

Body

Pixy Solid Foot Scrub

Nivea Smooth Nourishing Hand Cream with Macadamia Nut Oil

I’ve heard SO many good things about Pixy. And since my feet are a bit manky, I decided I’d give this a go as my first Pixy product. And I picked up the hand cream as it’s always handy (harhar) to have in your handbag.

And that’s it for now! Let me know if you’d like a proper review of any of these, I’ll most likely do post for the nail colours anyway.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Behind the Scenes of the Museum of Baked Beans An Odd-sey by Hunter Davies

I picked this book on a whim while in Manchester at the beginning of the month, I knew I’d need some reading material and I like quirky books like this. Hunter Davies travels around the UK, visiting odd and unique museums. There’s the British Lawnmower Museum, The Pencil Museum, The Laurel and Hardy Museum and of course The Baked Bean Museum of Excellence, amongst loads others. I’ve actually even been to one myself, Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising in Notting Hill, which I highly recommend. The book was an interesting read, you get to see what inspires people to start these, often small, museums. You’ll discover loads of quirky ones too, and some sound very interesting (I like the idea of the Pencil Museum myself!)

Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns by Lauren Weisberger

This is the sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, set 8 years into the future. Andy is now not only BFFs with Emily, once her superior and nemesis at Runway magazine, but also her business partner in their high fashion bridal magazine, The Plunge. But Andy starts having nightmares the night before her wedding, which brings back the horrible memories of working for Miranda, her Runway boss (and also the Devil). Which turns out to be a premonition of sorts, as Andy finds herself running into Miranda more often than she’d like and all of a sudden, Miranda is back in her life. How will Andy cope with this, along with trying to keep her marriage on track? Personally, the book didn’t wow me. I was interested to see what had happened to the characters from the first book and how things had changed. While reading the book, while the writing didn’t blow me away, I did enjoy reading it (most of the time anyway, except when Andy was overly anxious), but more because I just wanted to get to the end and find out what happened. If you are a big fan of Miranda from the first book, then you might be disappointed as she actually isn’t around too much, it’s more her lurking in the background, causing the anxiety. If you liked the first book (more so than the film really, as I think I prefer the film to the book), then you’ll probably enjoy this book for what it is, a nice, easy read.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

This book has been on my radar for a while, I actually had it checked out from the library last year but never got around to getting past the introduction. It wasn’t until I read my friend Julia’s post over on January Day about the book that I went off and ordered it again from the library, determined to finish it. Being an introvert at heart, it was fascinating to learn about how we tick and not just hear about introverts from just a negative angle. It’s great for introverts to learn more about themselves and great for extroverts to learn more about their introverted employers, employees, children and partners. It has helped me understand myself a whole lot more, especially the bit about being a highly sensitive person (which extroverts can be too! Just a head’s up, the rest of this paragraph is about why I believe I’m a HSP. If you’re not interested in reading that, I’d suggest just skipping it). It means that people who are highly sensitive like to have order in their lives to help minimise surprises; sensitivity to sounds, smells, lights, pain and/or coffee; overwhelmed by too much stimuli; rich and fulfilling internal lives; tendency to process things at a deeper level and feeling very strong emotions. I know some people might roll their eyes at this, the two other people I’ve mentioned it to in real live reacted similarly, but I really do think it applies to me. In the book, Cain mentions that a HSP might feel perfectly happy to drive hours without listening to anything. And that is me to a tee. If I’m in the mood, I’ll put on radio or some music, but 70% of the time I’m happy to sit in silence as I drive. I think it also explains why I detest when my boyfriend decides to flick through different channels while listening to radio or watching TV. If I’m watching a programme, I generally just leave it play during an ad break while my boyfriend ALWAYS changes the channel or go in search for another song on the radio. When I mentioned this to my boyfriend, he said ‘No, it’s just because you hate not being in control’, but honest I think it’s just because it can overwhelm me on a subconscious level. I also hate when he has the radio too loud in the car, and I remember whenever I stayed at my cousin’s house, she’d have one of those plug in pest controls that emitted a noise that apparently only pests could hear. Except I could hear it too and it used to drive me nuts at night. She didn’t believe me until someone else stayed in the room and said they could hear and then she changed the frequency. I’m not a huge fan of surprises in my life, the idea of a public proposal makes me feel sick and I hate the idea of a huge wedding. Not the part of having all my friends and family around me, I love that idea, but the thought of having everyone’s eyes on me and being the centre of attention! On my laptop I have installedF.lux, which changes the screen brightness when the sun sets in your area, it’s been a god send. I really hate having the screen at normal brightness at night since installing this, it throws me off. I’m perfectly content with my own company and always have been. Living in a huge family, I now realise that being around a lot of chaos would unsettle me and that’s why I would love to spend time by myself, to recuperate and relax. Also, boy do I feel strong emotions! I can cry at the drop of a hat, I often well up just reading or watching a sad or touching story. Anyway, I could probably go on about this, so I’ll just leave it at that for now!

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

This book has been on my radar for a while, I’ve seen it mentioned a lot this year, so I decided to give it a shot. When Harold Fry gets a letter from an old colleague Queenie, he rights a reply and walks down the road to a post box. When he reaches it, he decides to walk onto the next post box, until he suddenly gets it into his head that he will walk up the length of England to deliver it in person, with just the clothes he’s wearing, his unsuitable yachting shoes and a credit card, no mobile phone! It was an interesting idea, Harold meets some lovely characters along the way (and some not so great ones). While he walks, Harold has loads of time to reflect on his past. We learn a bit more about the state of his marriage, his family and the mistakes he’s made. Some bits dragged here and there and slowed the story down but overly it is a sweet, touching novel. I really enjoyed Harold as a character, even if once or twice he did frustrate me slightly!

The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (AKA J.K. Rowling)

Getting my hands on this book as been a bit of an ordeal and slight mystery too! The second I heard that this was written by J.K. Rowling, I requested my library buy it. The books were delivered and processed a month and I ordered it as soon as I could, one of 5 copies available from 5 different libraries in the county. One copy from library A was sent out and I waited patiently for it to arrive the next week. It didn’t, but I thought ‘Hey, sometimes it takes 2 weeks’, but next week it still wasn’t delivered, despite the status of the book being ‘In Transit’. This continued for a few weeks until I mentioned it to my local librarian. She put a hold on a copy from library B. When I arrived the next week, neither had been delivered yet so we assumed the copy from library A had been lost so we cancelled the hold on that copy. The next week, I get a phone call from the library saying the book has been delivered. It’s the copy from library A. But since we had cancelled the hold on that copy, the computer wouldn’t let her scan it out for me as it had a hold on it by another person. However, the librarian kindly gave me the copy without scanning it out (I’m a very trustworthy person!) as the book couldn’t be delivered to the person until the following week, I just made sure I had finished the book before collection date. The librarian and I have no idea what happened to that book, it took about 6 or 7 weeks to be delivered. We reckon it must have been borrowed along the way. It has a return stamp on it yet when she checked the record there was nobody recorded as already having that copy out! Like I said, a bit of a mystery. But was it worth it? Yes, I believe it was!

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is the almost unlikely hero of the book. At the beginning of the book, we find him down on his luck. He’s just ended his tempestuous relationship with his fiancée and as a result he finds himself homeless, living in his office of his failing company, deeply in debt and also missing a leg due to service in Afghanistan. However this changes when John Bristow, brother of famous supermodel Luna Landry, comes and ask Cormoran to investigate the death of his sister, who had fallen to her death from her apartment 3 months earlier in what the police believed was suicide. John however believes otherwise and asks Cormoran to investigate for him. Along with the help of his newly appointed temporary secretary Robin, Cormoran is delved into a world of the rich and famous, of models, designers, film producers and rock stars, as he tries to unravel the truth. I really enjoyed the story, a tiny bit slow to fully get going, but once it did I was hooked. Again, like The Casual Vacancy, it’s a slow burner, mainly developing characters and full of rich descriptions of the plot and characters, instead of an action packed thriller. But it does come to a pretty satisfactory climax. I love that Cormoran has his flaws, it stops the story from being too cheesy, makes him more of an anti-hero than hero. And I LOVE the none romantic relationship between Cormoran and Robin, it’s very refreshing. I do hope there’s a follow up book, I don’t often read a lot of crime or mystery novels but I really enjoyed this so I might branch out more!

September Stats

Number of books read- 5

Ratio fiction to non-fiction- 3:2

Number of eBooks- 0

Number of books borrowed from library- 4

And that’s it for September! Not many read, partly because when I was in Manchester, I got hooked on watching TV shows that I normally don’t watch (Jeremy Kyle Show, Pointless, early 2000s Home and Away repeats, antique shows and pretty much anything on Dave!), as well as Game of Thrones once I got back from Manchester. I’ve kinda lost my reading mojo, I haven’t started another book since finished The Cuckoo’s Calling on Sunday. Which I know was only 3 days ago, but usually I close one book and then open another straight away!